MEGA CITIES

By 2030, the world’s urban population will be 4.9 billion, with 1.7 billion more city dwellers and 20 million fewer rural dwellers. The challenges of global urbanization will bring us information technology, embedded robotics and sensing technology in buildings and infrastructure, and small personal devices spread into every corner of city dwellers’ lives. What will that look like?

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WELL-BEING AND COMFORT

Robotics technology that was used predominately in industry has now made its way into our lives for our well-being and comfort. Sophisticated automation and connected objects will allow our lives to become simpler. Robots can manage our daily household chores, social robots will keep us in the know with our social surrounding on the go, companion robots will help organize our personal lives and entertainment robots will provide for a…

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AGING POPULATION

There are not enough institutions or professional caregivers to absorb the healthcare requirements of today’s aging population. Technologies are focusing on extending independent living for the elderly, but is independence the appropriate technological goal? Perhaps a cohesion and interdependence to help the elderly function in their own environment is the key living more independent lives. Robots can help medical professionals and caregivers by removing tedious tasks and freeing them to…

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SMART GRIDS

It’s so smart. Smart grid integrates the traditional energy infrastructure of production and distribution with digital and communication technologies. But simply providing feedback about energy use isn’t enough to create great efficiency. There’s a strong global movement spearheaded by economists to add intelligent switching, thus robotics, to the energy distribution network. Robotics hold opportunities to innovate in production and distribution infrastructures, user interfaces, services and applications associated with the smart…

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TECHNOLOGY

Robotics is pluridisciplinary and integrates technologies from three main sciences : electronics, computing and mechanics. Hence robotics technologies are progressing with the progress of electronics, mechanics, materials, Artificial Intelligence and its applications (voice recognition, visual recognition, navigation allgorithms, behavior modellisation, image processing, etc….), nanotechnologies, aso. Looking at the robotics world through the technological theme, we could consider a robot as an ultimate prototype demonstrator, whose main purpose is to integrate…

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BUSINESS AND INVESTMENT

In 2011, more than $160 millon dollars was invested into hardware and robotics companies. There are now 56 venture capital, private equity and investment houses that actively invest in hardware and robotics and in 2012, the industry got its very own dedicated robotics venture capital companies with an initial $25 million dollar and € 60 million investment. Robotics will see a new age of growth from the alignment of the…

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